EYES [DEERNOSE PLOT P1]

Today was beautiful. The Newleaf sun warmed the forest comfortingly, a small breeze ruffling the moors of Windclan. The skies were bright and blue with small fluffy clouds floating lazily along. It looked like nothing could go wrong.

An old, lanky cat trudged through the tall grass towards the Windclan camp, his home for uncounted moons. In his silver muzzle he held a pathetic-looking thrush, the feathers a mess, some stuck on the tom's face. His brown-orange eyes were shrouded in darkness, dull, almost unseeing. Like he was already dead.

The eldest warrior made his way through the camp entrance with the poor prize in tow. He could feel eyes burning into his pelt from all directions; it felt like everyone and their kin were staring holes into his skin. Even the prey gazed, with their long-dead eyes of glass, and Deernose hated them for it. Hated everyone for it. The brown cat snatched the piece of prey that he sensed stared the most; an innocent crow, and began tearing into it until he no longer could feel it staring at him. A pair of eyes burned his back, his hackles raised and claws extended, he turned his head slightly to put the other cat in view. It was a Clanmate. No better than the remains of the bird at his paws. He would wait, however. Wait for the other to speak, to do something.

"Hello... Clanmate," he said softly, barely moving his jaw. In some tiny part of his diseased brain, his former self screamed, knowing something bad was bound to happen from this encounter.

Brindlesong was that clanmate, the she-cat no where near the age of the warrior. She held a deep respect for him though, nevertheless. From what she knew from her long-dead mother Ivyfur, he had been her apprentice... All that truly remained of the long-living she-cat. Throwing this from her mind, the fluffy cat herself couldn't help but stare at him.

"Hello... Clanmate,"

That pulled back to her reality. The words directed towards her like daggers, somewhat pulling her in. Dipping her head with long-overdue respect, it seemed to be as if she was talking to Falconstar himself. "Hello... Deernose. I see that the birds were giving you trouble?" She said kindly, her voice sweet and calm.
~~
Willowbreeze was also settled some pace away, almost in the shadows. Her head was held high as she watched the obviously diseased clanmate enter the camp, further more, her mother addressing him. That took her gaze straight to the cat, her gaze instead burning into the she-cat on the other side of the camp. Best to leave him alone...

He slowly rose from his sitting position, heaving himself onto stick-like legs. Body turning, Deernose faced the she-cat directly, sawing with the light wind. Almost like he could be blown away at any moment. Recognition flared in a portion of his brain. This cat looked incredibly like someone he used to know: Ivyfur, his late mentor. Although the clanmate in front of him was, if he remembered correctly, Ivyfur's daughter, it still made no difference.

He paused while his muscles bunched, listening. The birds, troubling him? To his battered mind, the meaning behind her words were clear: his clan, his "family", had been watching him. Deeming him weak, far past the golden years, not fathering a single kit, nor turning the tide of any battle. In his fury and desperation, the tiny sane portion of himself gave up.

"I'll prove I'm not weak," the tom forced before launching himself at Brindlesong, claws extended. His poor strength was improved with the loss of his morals and he tore at the much younger she-cat like a crazed rouge, immediately aiming for the throat.

"Get off of her!" Eaglethorn had been standing near the freshkill pile when he saw Deernose leap in attack. With a loud roar, he raced across the clearing and grabbed Deernose by the scruff, yanking the near-elder off of Brindlesong and tossing him like a rag doll onto the ground below. Snarling in rage, the warrior pinned down his clanmate with a paw, eyes narrowed and filled with rage. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you, I dare you." Attacking a clanmate was treacherous enough, but Eaglethorn's mate? He wouldn't breathe again.

ooc; like eagle has't done it before.

ic;

Brindlesong had yowled in surprise at the sudden attack from the elder cat, his words stinging her just as much as the wounds that he had been so quick to inflict. As much as she would hate to admit that he smelled like mouse droppings, that was the least of her worries. Even as weak as the tom seemed to be, he'd managed to get some fairly sized wounds into her shoulders and chest.

When Eaglethorn had come and thrown the tom off of her, she had rolled away to catch her breath. "What in StarClan's name is this mouse-brained cat thinking?" She spat, her happiness having sucked up rather quickly. Turning her head to lap at the wound inflicted upon her shoulder, she then moved to where Eaglethorn was, staring at both of them. "I forgot that he wasn't the honorable warrior he once was." Her words had an edge to them that wasn't normally carried whenever she spoke; distrust and betrayal.

Wham. Deernose felt himself flying through the air and a brown form shoving him into the dirt. No recognition of who it was, just furious wreathing and snaps that were close enough to take a few whiskers from Eaglethorn's muzzle.

A whisper. "I am not weak."

The words of venom jabbed his thoughts like claws. His dull brown gaze shakily focused on wounded shoulders. What had he done? He felt horrified that this was his doing. The feeling was gone in an instant. Personality, gone. All that was left was raw emotion. Thoughts of the wounded animal he was arose: flee, hide.

His eyes held no intelligence anymore, no hint at all that he once had a single complex thought. The old warrior laughed, cried, bit. "I AM NOT WEAK," he repeated, and with as much force as he could muster, threw the tom off of him.

He did not rise. His body was reminded of its own frailness and his chest heaved and blood was roaring through his veins. He was weak. The once prideful tom was now sprawled across the dirt, unable to move. He wanted to close his eyes, to die right then and there. But consciousness was long gone, taken over by this diseased, feral brain sitting in his head.

Deernose lay there, energy spent and helpless to himself. The elder's den wasn't so far away; maybe he could crawl away, he could hide from all these skin-blistering stares. Barely able to lift his black paws, the bony cat trudged into the hole and allowed gravity to pull him down into it. There were no nests. No elder has slept here in a long time. Maybe he'd die here, the sane portion of his brain might have thought, if it weren't practically dead.

Hopefully.

The smell of blood roused the tom from his den where he'd been organising herbs, taking stock of the supplies and planning out worse case scenarios. He, at first, thought it was a vision from Starclan, not believing blood would be spilt by anyone in camp. Recently as he'd been out gathering herbs, he came across a old mouse than looked only recently dead, but when he turned it over, found it consumed by maggots inside. He'd been surprised as his usually astute sense of smell didn't detect it's decomposed state. At the time, he didn't view it as a sign, but as he ran out of his den, looking onto a scene of battle, he feared that the mouse meant more than a simple piece of crowfood.

"Eaglethorn!" Gorsepaw hissed, racing between the injured elder and the tom with his claws out. "What do you think you're doing? Attacking an elder, are you mad?!"

Gorsepaw had come too late, and had only seen the tom pounce on top of the elder, Deernose. He had no clue what was going on, but Deernose looked positively wilted and half dead compared to the warrior in his prime. Thus he couldn't help drawing conclusions about what happened.

"He was simply defending me, Gorsepaw. Deernose attacked me first." Brindlesong said, her eyes narrowed at the tom dragging himself away to the elders den. Empty as it was, she'd still ask an apprentice to get him some bedding... But to be careful. The tom smelled of death, and no less she'd have to clean it from her own fur.

"What in StarClan's name were you thinking, Mother?" Now that was a voice you didn't hear too ofted. Willowbreeze had come up to her mother, to quickly start fussing over her. It was almost as if she was the mother and Brindlesong was the kit, but no. Looking over at Gorsepaw, she looked at her parents before stepping forward. "Gorsepaw, I will tell you all of what happened. Deernose had entered camp after he had gone hunting. Brindlesong was being kind, trying to make him laugh a little bit. But instead he attacked her, and so she had no choice to defend herself. Eaglethorn had also come out though, and had taken Deernose off of Brindlesong to defend her... That is what happened before you got here." It was a mouthfull, but the she-cat didn't have much trouble with speaking when the time was right. But, soon after she went back to trying to make sure her mother was alright.

Which, in honest terms, she was for the most part. Besides being wounded the older she-cat was fine, but rather worried about what Falconstar had to say about all this.

Cobaltfire had seen the whole thing, having come back to the camp from hunting shortly after Deernose had. The rabbit she had caught dropped from her jaws as her mouth fell open. She had been frozen to the spot in shock of the whole event, and when Deernose had finally crawled into the elder's den, she found she was able to move again. She picked up the piece of prey and tossed it onto the fresh-kill pile- it was no longer her concern- as she rushed over to Brindlesong.

Eaglethorn grunted softly as the elder pushed him away, though he remained on his paws. With a snarl, he prepared to get back and finish the job, but Gorsepaw interfered. "Get out of the way, Gorsepaw. I'm going to give Deernose the punishment he deserves." Regardless of if he was an elder or not, Eaglethorn wasn't going to allow Deernose to walk free after harming his mate. He took a step forward, now face to face (size difference aside) with the young medicine cat. "He's mine."

Hearing what had transpired, Gorsepaw sheathed his claws for the moment. What Willowbreeze and Brindlesong said made sense with the wounds on Brindlesong, which he definitely need to take a look at. It looked as though the elder had done some impressive damage to the she-cat's shoulder and chest which were bleeding sluggishly. And he would have rushed over to dealt with the wounds had Eaglethorn not seem so threatening.

He was torn between his duty to heal, and the duty to defend the elder. While he had no particular attachment to Deernose, he didn't fancy letting the elder die by Eaglethorn's paws. But now wasn't the time for a fight, he needed to take a look at Brindlesong's wounds. Starting to get a little pissed off about the whole situation, the calico's haunches rose and fur bristled, making him look a little bigger. Still smaller than the warrior, but he stood his ground.

"Eaglethorn, get it together. You're talking about maiming an elder who's clearly addled in the head. Are you hare-brained enough to think, Falconstar would be okay with this? Go out for a hunt and blow off your steam. I have better things to do, like healing your mate, than fighting off warriors to defend the elderly." The addled in the head was a guess, he'd noticed the elder being odd of late, but he assumed it was to do with age. Deernose had been an elder all the apprentice's life so he had little to compare his recent behaviour with. For all he knew, Deernose was just normally a little odd. But now it was clear something was up.

[Sorry I was gone, my phone was taken. This is a good place to end P1, i'll post P2 topic as soon as I can.]